The design and manufacturing of one screen for the itouch and iphones might have saved them money vs. designing and producing two separate displays, while the itouch display could have been made cheaper you save money for buying larger volume of the better screen, and you don't need to pay for the additional design. 50 million 5" screens of the same type for 40 bucks or 30 Million for 50 bucks and 20 million for 30 bucks.

also, they probably will be able to market this amazingly better screen for the itouch and possibly gain more sales.Reply

I suspect we have our reason why right there. I think the reason that Apple's using the same panel on both is that they don't want the added complexity of two touch methods at once. They've already invested the R&D into putting in-cell touch into the iPhone's IPS panel. To use a different panel on the iPod Touch, they'd need to either put in-cell touch into the lower-grade iPod Touch panel, or add a secondary touch layer. Combine that with the economies of scale of using the same panel on both the iPhone and iPod Touch, and I think you've got sufficient reason to simply use the same panel across the entire line.Reply

Which is an interesting and welcome shift from previously using an inferior display for the iPod Touch. Even if it was the same Retina resolution, the previous display was clearly not the same panel technology.Reply

If you listen to the end of the video you can hear two people in the background talking where they mention that the iPod touch has a white front except for the black, which I would assume has a black front.Reply

I was hoping that after all this time Apple would put in a 32GB option for the new Nano as I don't want the larger size of the Touch and couldn't care less about video playback. The touch screen would be useful for managing music/ playlists and searching for music as I like it better than the scroll wheel.

I currently have the 6th Gen nano and the power/ sleep button is known to get stuck due to Apple only using a double sided tape solution to keep the buttons in place. I hope that's not the case with the new Nano. I also hope Griffin comes out with a Courier Clip for the new Nano similar to the one for the 6th Gen.

Strangely, the new Nano reminds me of the old Samsung touch screen players like the P3 and R0. It's cool though, those have been discontinued and I'm looking for a similar style player.Reply

Any clue if the iPod Touch is the exact same one as in the iPad 2,4 or if it's the same one in the current generation AppleTV? IIRC, the AppleTV uses a die harvested single core variant with half the memory bandwidth. Not an issue for an AppleTV which doesn't have the same interaction as an in-hand iOS device (so the user won't necessarily notice if it's slower), but this solution would make the iPod Touch only slightly faster than the version with the A4.

It would be nice if the iPod nano could be set to auto-record FM. I could set it to record NPR everyday from 4-6pm, for example (I don't think All Things Considered is available as a podcast). I'm sure someone decided to keep the recording studios happy by not including this feature though.Reply

Well, Apple's site is already updated with all the new iPods and whatnot, and the "Features" section says "Dual-core A5 chip. Power meets play. It’s the most powerful iPod touch ever. That’s because the dual-core A5 chip provides up to twice the processing power and up to seven times faster graphics than the previous generation."

I'm not a "gym guy", but there's very little doubt that the target demographic for the Nano are gym-goers (and those who generally like physically active activities).

I believe there's a perfect market for this device, and as such, while it doesn't appeal to me personally - I understand the decision to make the nano.

The 7 includes bluetooth, which is fantastic. What surprises me is this: The target market who buy the Nano are also still just as likely to own an iPhone as someone without a Nano, due to its purpose. Why not make it an iPhone "extender" via Bluetooth?

The Practical application is this: You're on a treadmill in the gym, and you own an iPhone and Nano. You own the Nano, because the iPhone in your pocket is a little too big while running. Why not allow the Nano to connect to the iPhone sitting in your backpack on the floor (via Bluetooth), and if a call comes in, you can answer it without getting your phone via your Nano, using the new EarPods with inline mic connected to the Nano?

It seems like such a simple application, and makes the Nano decision for iPhone owners even less of a redundancy question.

Anyway, the Nano isn't for me with or without this feature... but as an individual interesting in product design, its strikes me as low hanging fruit that was missed.Reply

The old smaller form factor would've suited that concept better... The nano just seems to be a constant experiment at this point. It shrinks and grows every other gen, gaining and losing features at random... Probably the most overpriced too, yet I still find it appealing as a replacement to my Clip Zip... There's a big untapped market for exercise players with more hardcore features (GPS, heartbeat etc) and/or phone extender features as you suggest.Reply

Agreed, most of my friends with iPhones buy a nano or two for the gym. A built-in clip would be good or arm-band feature as well as the capability to add a heart rate monitor or GPS sensor maybe interfacing with third party ones using bluetooth. Apple would sell millions more of these if they did. I use my iPhone with walk jog run to map my run through GPS, and it is incredible for that. Something smaller which clipped on, that did that would be even more awesome, because all the Garmin devices suffer from being overly complex to use. I think the bluetooth link through to iPhone is a bit of a hit and miss feature though. My backpack is in the locker room in the gym when i'm running or doing weights and I doubt bluetooth would stretch that far. Reply

Fundamentally, the ipods are music players. Thus one of the most, or the most, important attributes is their sound quality. Yet somehow this always seems to get lost -- for instance, in this piece there is not a single mention of how they sound vs. the last generation (only the sound quality of the new earbuds is addressed). Brian, can we please get an assessment of this?Reply

I hope Apple improved the notoriously quiet speaker in the iPod Touch. I like listening to podcasts while doing something else in my apartment, but the speaker volume is so low that you can't understand anything as soon as there's any other noise.Reply

I've been trying to find pictures of the new iPod Touches in their actual colors (nothing ever looks exactly as it does on the product's page). Is that the pink iPod Touch or the red iPod Touch in the photos? Reply

Maybe it's just that I'm cheap, but I'm surprised that nobody, here or anywhere, has mentioned that the new iPod Touch is $100 more! Usually Apple keeps their prices the same of the new model and reduces the price of the old model, but not this time. Why? I know they've upped the minimum from 8 gigs to 16, but I'm assuming that's only because new apps need more space. Am I the only one who find the price increase odd?Reply

Apple kinda split the iPod touch lineup, which is causing some confusion. They kept the old 4th gen, bumped it up to 16GB, and kept the price at $199. They lowered the old 32GB to $249, and got rid of the old 64GB.

The new 5th gen iPod touch starts at $299, but comes with 32GB of storage. The new 64GB one is expensive as always, at $399.

So there's now a kind of "low end" and "high end" with the iPod touch, kinda like what they're doing with the iPhone.Reply